Really need help with Python - attach selecte object onto another's object's vertices

Coding
1

Hi everyone,

An assignment of mine is requiring me to make a Python script with a GUI that places object (A) on every single vertex of a selected object (B). And be able to scale ObjA on Obj B’s vertices through the UI window. As a complete beginner in Python, I’ve been researching and watching scripting videos for the past 16 hours;however, I still cannot seem to understand how to write a script for this.
The only thing that I put down in the editor is the basic:

Import maya.cmds as cmds

//Store object names into variables(let’s say I have a cone and a sphere in the Maya scene)
Obj1=‘pCone1’
Obj2=‘pSphere1’

That’s it. And I managed to create the Ui window with 2 textfield buttons, a scale slider and a ‘Compute’ button.

Some people are mentioning commands such as poly.Evaluate, .time or xform…have read about them, looked at examples but I am STILL confused on what to do for this particular situation:(:
Sorry for the noob question but this has really been frying my mind.

2

start with the commands “xform” and “pointPosition” to move objects and get vertex locations respectively.

3

I wrote some quick code to get you started.

getAttr to get the verts,
xform to get position of the verts

Question on it?

import maya.cmds as cmds


def getVtxPos( shapeNode ) :
    
    # Will contain all positions of the verts
    vtxWorldPosition = []    
    
    # Get the amount of verts
    vtxIndexList = cmds.getAttr( shapeNode+".vrts", multiIndices=True )
    
    
    for i in vtxIndexList :
        # Current position of the verts
        curPointPosition = cmds.xform( str(shapeNode)+".pnts["+str(i)+"]", query=True, translation=True, worldSpace=True )
        
        # Append it to the list
        vtxWorldPosition.append( curPointPosition )
        
       
    return vtxWorldPosition


def placeObjects():
    # will contain all new objects (use this list later when scaling)
    listOfObject = []
    
    # Your initial object
    objectA = 'pCubeShape1'
    
    # Create Object B, width, heigh, depth are set to 0.1
    objectB = cmds.polyCube(h = 0.1, w=0.1, d=0.1)[0]
    
    # Call the getVtxPos to get all positions
    listOfVertxPos = getVtxPos( shapeNode )
    
    # Itterate the position list
    for eachPos in listOfVertxPos:
        
        # Duplicate object B
        duplicatedObject = cmds.duplicate(objectB)[0]
        
        # Append the new object to the list
        listOfObject.append(duplicatedObject)
        
        # Move the newly duplicated item to the position
        cmds.xform(duplicatedObject, t=eachPos)
        
    return listOfObject

print placeObjects()
4

if you are just starting out learning to script, it would be useful to create a skeleton of your code using comments.


def placeObjAtEachVertex(sourceObj, destinationObj):
    
    # get a list of all the vertices on the destinationObj

    # loop through each vertex

        # get the position of the vertex

        # make a duplicate of the sourceObj

        # reposition the duplicated sourceObj

    # done!
    pass